I breathed in preparation; gripping at the floor, digging my fingernails into the frozen ground, and feeling the first flicker of internal flame ignite in my blood. The flame spread, catching the rest of my bloodstream with a forest fire of pain rushing through my body and blinding me with torment.
Finding no rest, I flailed helplessly on the floor, cutting my arms and face with the broken glass littering the dirt next to me.
If someone would have asked me which pain was worse, the King's Curse or the initiation, I don't know if I could have said. Both were the equivalents of the eternal suffering belonging solely to the gates of hell. With the initiation, there was no one to help me. No one to share my agony with. No one to encourage me to fight through the overwhelming death and survive.
I remembered Avalon and his resolve to survive the King's Curse. It would be the same resolve he would fight Lucan with until the day he died. It was the resolve that gave him confidence in the back of the prisoner's truck, surrounded by Guard and without magic to heal his broken bones. It was the same resolve that would give him defiance even in the bottom of a prison cell, being tortured and beaten. Even then, he would not recall his magic. Even then he would stand for what was good. Even then he would fight for justice.
And that was what I needed to do. I needed to fight. Not just this excruciating torment, but the whole of the Monarchy. Avalon was enough to remind me that there was good left, there was an end that needed writing and it was left to me.
As the darkness clouded my mind, and the walls of unconsciousness closed in on me, I remembered Avalon and believed I would survive this. I had to.
My people had no one else to save them. I was the last of the Rebellion. There was no one, but me.
I was the next Oracle.
I woke up slowly. My head was pounding and my blood still felt uncomfortably hot, suffocating my lungs and slowing my heart rate. The snow had started again and was falling heavily on me, covering me with thick, ashy snowflakes.
I lay still for a moment longer, allowing my thoughts to gather completely and my senses to waken. The snow was unrelenting, but I was hot, so hot.
My eyes flew open and I sat up quickly, not on the dirt floor of the underground cellar but in the middle of a forest…. our forest.
Our forest that had been set on fire. Flames devoured the once breath-taking flowering trees, hungrily engulfing the delicate petals, leaving no evidence of their beauty behind.
I gasped, inhaling the ash I had mistaken for snow. As it fell down from the ruins of our dream-world it covered me in a thick paste of gray grime. I stood up, shaking out my hair, but the flames of the fire were destroying the forest too quickly for it to matter. The ash would continue to fall until there was nothing but scorched earth remaining in the celestial meeting place Kiran and I had fallen in love in.
I shouted his name, over the roar of the inferno, piercing the very depths of the magical world. But nothing came back. I knew he wasn't here.
He had brought me here to prove a point and nothing more. This was the end of anything we had.
I sunk back to the earth, pulling my knees to my chest and wrapping my arms around them. The glistening emerald of my engagement ring looked out of place in the middle of the destruction around me.
I held up my ring-finger, feeling violently ill, and then I fingered the necklace still dangling against my chest. How had I been so blinded by sparkling gifts and empty promises? How had I let this happen?
In this place, in the place built by Kiran, the architecture of a secret, enchanting world made only for us, I couldn't think about Amory, or Avalon or the lost. Watching the towering trees reduced to cinders and the wildflowers disintegrate into the raining ash I thought only of Kiran.
I had loved him deeply and wholly. And he was gone.
For the first time and the only time, I allowed myself to grieve not the lives lost today, but the love lost. I allowed myself to feel the pain of a heart ripped in two and the sickening separation of soul mates.
I let my head fall to my knees and wept, loudly and without control. Above the roaring of the flames eating away all of the life in this place were my sobs; my throaty, raspy, raw cries of pain.
I stayed that way for what felt like hours, until the flames died down, leaving blackened tree stumps and the smell of sulfur burning my nostrils. I cried until there was nothing left, until there were no more tears left to be shed.
I grieved for Kiran completely. And when I finally left the now-barren wasteland that would be abandoned in the empty places of my subconscious, I left with a new resolve and a new dedication. I would have no more thoughts about a long lost love, or the soul mate who betrayed me.
I woke up into reality, on the cold dirt floor of the cellar. I stood, still weak, not having any idea if days had passed or only hours. I walked through the wreckage of the room and through the now softly lit hallway. I climbed the stone steps into the first light of morning.
The sun was rising in the east, painting the wide sky with pinks and soft purples, and just the hint of blue stretching beyond the horizon. The fresh snow from the night before left the air crisp and pure, the iciness brought cleansing in my charred lungs. It was going to be a beautiful day, one of those rare winter mornings when temperatures reach above freezing and the hope of a close spring was renewed.
I stared at the rising sun, feeling as though it were my kin. It was my turn to rise, my turn to shine. I pulled the engagement ring off of my finger and the necklace off of my neck, slipping the expensive ring onto the silver chain and then back over my head.
The jewels were not a reminder of a finished love or even of a forgotten life, they were tokens to fight by; the reminders of a vengeance left wanting and the war I would wage. They were the fuel I would light this fire with and then burn this Kingdom to the ground.
I would find Avalon and rescue him and the others. I would bring down the Monarchy. I would end the Kendrick line. I would destroy every last one of them. And I would start with finding my parents and rebuilding the Rebellion.
I had no idea how to find them or where to start, but it didn't matter. My mind had concrete clarity and I would do whatever it took to follow through, to carry on and finish the fight.